TMW MMERICar* BE® JO^JRItSlL. 



601 



stantly, never leaving it for basswood, 

 but it was exceptional ratber than in 

 all blossoms, as heretofore, where you 

 could see the drops of honey standing. 



Poor SeasouD are BleNslngs. 



The last two very poor honey seasons, 

 will, I am conhdent, prove a blessing to 

 bee-keepers. It has given us old 

 veterans a splendid education ; it has 

 taught us how to make the most of dis- 

 aster; it is a valuable acquisition to 

 know how to make the most out of our 

 business when good luck favors us, and 

 it is also equally valuable to know how 

 to make the most during disastrous 

 seasDns. Besides this, the markets are 

 cleared out, consumers are getting the 

 habit of paying a little more for their 

 honey, and better than all, producers 

 as well as consumers, are finding out 

 that bees do not '• work for nothing and 

 board themselves," but that intelligent 

 labor and capital are needed to make 

 our business remunerative. 



The quality of honey in this section 

 is some better than that of last year. 

 We shall strive to winter our bees to 

 the best of our ability, believing that 

 honey-production offers more induce- 

 ments at the present time, than at any 

 time during the past few years. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



TIERING UP. 



My Method while Working for 

 Comb Honey. 



Written for Gleanings in Bee-Culture 

 BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



The usual plan of working for comb 

 honey is what is known as the tiering 

 up system, and without doubt there are 

 more who use this system than there 

 are of. those who use all other systems 

 combined; yet this does not certainly 

 make it true that this plan is the best 

 one there is, by any means. It often 

 happens that the majority is not in the 

 right, and so, after 1 had proven to my 

 entire satisfaction, that there was a 

 better plan to work on, in producing 

 comb honey, than the tiering-up system, 

 I forsook the same and turned my at- 

 tention to other plans. My ctuef objec- 

 tion to the tiering- up plan was that not 

 80 much honey could be obtained by 

 using it; and, worse than all the rest, if 

 the utmost care was not used, the result 

 would be lots of unfinished sections in 

 the fall. These unfinished sections 

 have been an eye-sore to all the users 

 of this plan, as the immediate past will 

 testify, for many are so disgusted with 

 them that they recommend that they be 

 burned up, while a whole issue of one 

 of our bee-periodicals, is used in telling 

 how to save them by way of feeding 

 back extracted honey, in order to get 

 them filled. 



The next system most in use is what 

 is termed the "side and top storing plan 

 combined," which I adopted upon leav- 

 ing the tiering-up plan. J5y the use of 

 this plan, more honey can be obtained 

 than by any other plan I know of, ex- 

 cept by using the lateral plan, of which 

 I shall soon speak. The trouble with 



the side and top storing plan was, that 

 it required much work; yet, as I go over 

 the results of the past while usiug it, I 

 am convinced that the extra amount of 

 honey obtained by it more than paid me 

 for ail the extra work the plan required, 

 over the tiering up plan. An average 

 yield of over so lbs. of comb honey per 

 colony, for a period of 15 years, is a 

 record never attained by any of the ad- 

 vocates of that plan. 



A few years ago D. A. Jones came 

 out with a wholly side-storing plan, the 

 young brood to be kept in the center of 

 the hive by means of perforated zinc, 

 while the sections were to be placed be- 

 tween that and the older brood, which 

 was to be kept on the outside. One 

 trial of this proved, so far as I was con- 

 cerned, that the plan was fallacious; 

 and although he told us he would ex- 

 plain, some years ago, I have never seen 

 a word from him on the subject since; 

 hence I havenot enumerated this in the 

 above three plans at all. 



While. working with the side and top 

 storing plan I left a passageway under 

 the side sections, so that any bees which 

 might be scattered around over the top 

 and side of the hive, after any manipu- 

 lation, could get back to the cluster, in- 

 stead of dying there, as is the case 

 where no means of outlet is provided. 

 This caused many to write me, asking 

 if I meant to have this so; "for," said 

 they, "the bees will go around under 

 these side sections, up into the cap over 

 them, and build comb there, which they 

 fill with honey." I told them that this 

 was as I wanted it, giving the reasons 

 for so leaving it, and telling them if any 

 colony so persisted in doing, to give 

 more room by adding sections at the 

 sides. 



Well, I often got caught in this same 

 fix myself, when I would be a little 

 tardy in keeping up with the bees, so 

 that I have often had from 5 to 15 

 pounds of honey built in the cap of the 

 hive, the bees having to travel from 2-5 

 to 30 inches entirely away from the 

 brood to get there. This leaving the 

 brood and storing honey in such amounts 

 in the cap, led me to adopt what I term 

 the lateral plan of obtaining section 

 honey, which plan gives me fully as 

 much honey as could be obtained by the 

 side and top box plan, with as little 

 work as is required when using the 

 tiering-np plan. 



The larger part of my hives are of the 

 kind known as the "chaff hive," which 

 gives plenty of space on top for all the 

 room required by the largest colony, 

 without tiering up. Over the top of 

 these hives I have placed a queen ex- 

 cluding honey-board, the queen-exclud- 

 ing part going over only the brood 

 apartment to the hive, the rest being a 

 thin board to cover up the chaff. When 

 the honey season arrives this is put on 

 (quilts being used, together with saw- 

 dust cushions up to this time), and from 

 three to five wide frames, holding four 

 l>4-pound sections each, are placed 

 directly over the brood. As soon as 

 these are well occupied with bees at 

 work, I add one or two wide frames at 

 each side; and when these are satisfac- 

 torily occupied I add enough more to 

 cover the top of the hive if so much 

 room is needed. In this way I accom- 

 modate the size of the colony with the 



needed room, neither giving too much 

 nor too little, as must of necessity occur 

 where the T super and others of a set 

 capacity are used. 



As soon as the first that were put on 

 are filled, they are taken off (handling 

 by the wide frame only, so five pounds 

 are handled instead of single boxes), 

 when the partly filled sections at each 

 side are slid along on the honey-board 

 till they come together in the center, 

 when the empty ones are placed at the 

 sides. 



As the honey season draws to a close 

 no more empty sections are put on, so 

 that, when the season is over, I often 

 have but one or two wide frames or 

 sections on the hive, thus doing away 

 with more partly filled sections than I 

 really need for bait sections the follow- 

 ing season. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



FOUL BROOD CURE. 



The Sulphuric Acid and other 

 inethods of Cure. 



Writtin for the American Bee Journal 

 BY GERD WENDELKEN. 



Many substances can be used as a 

 remedy for foul brood, but the question 

 is, which is the best? Salicylic acid 

 and carbolic acid, associated with borax 

 and alcohol, is recommended by Mr. 

 Muth and Mr. Kohnke, as the best 

 remedy, but some other beekeepers 

 have found them of no use. The fail- 

 ures, 1 think, are caused by wrong 

 methods which they pursued. The 

 attempt to cure foul brood by spraying 

 the infected hive and combs with 

 diluted salicylic or carbolic acid is un- 

 certain, because we may spray too 

 much or not enough ; and in addition 

 to this it is very troublesome to apply 

 it, besides having a chilling effect on 

 the colonies, and is often a mischief in- 

 stead of a benefit. The worst of all is 

 the fact, that when applied to hives 

 and combs, we start robbing, and bees 

 from other hives visit the combs under 

 treatment, and take the spores home 

 with them, and by the time one colony 

 is cured, some of the others are infected ; 

 therefore I always have been in favor 

 of the remedy being given in the food, 

 and provide the bees with the drug, and 

 the bees will give it to the larvae. 



Methods or Curing Foul Brood. 



Mr. Stachelhausen recommends car- 

 bolic acid, mixed with wood-coal and tar. 

 He puts this on felt paper in the hive 

 on the bottom-board, and moistens the 

 front at the entrance with it about 

 twice a week. lie disinfects every hive 

 in the yard whether diseased or not dis- 

 eased. The vapor of this stuff, he says 

 will prevent the spread of the disease 

 from four to six months. After this is 

 done, he commences to cure the dis- 

 eased colonies, by feeding every dis- 

 eased one with medicated syrup, as Mr. 

 Muth has recommended. 



Mr. Cheshire recommends carbolic 

 acid, 1 part to 500 parts of syrup, and he 

 has cured foul brood by feeding it to 

 diseased bees. 



